Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Duck Phobia and Dad Fail

Over the course of the winter, Hannah developed a fear of ducks. This is 100% my (dad's) fault. Here's how it happened:

There's this outdoor mini-mall in Valencia that has a duck pond in front of it. This looked like a nice place to feed ducks, so I took some old bread and give it to Hannah. She was having a great time feeding the ducks -- as long as she was on the bridge over the pond. Being part of a mall, I made the assumption that these ducks were tame.

This was a bad assumption.

We decided to get closer the ducks so we got off the bridge and stood out in the open to feed them. They soon surrounded us.

This is when dad should have chased them away. But one of the ducks, eyeing some bread in Hannah's hand, lept up to her and grabbed the bread away from her, biting her hand in the process. Fortunately the bite didn't break the skin. But the bite did scare Hannah enough to the point where anytime she saw a duck she freaked out. Oops.

Hannah would not even go near a duck for almost 3 months. I felt bad for a few weeks, but after a while it just became silly. They're ducks, come on!

Well one day we were planning on being in the area of the duck pond, so in oh-so-clever attempt to cure her of this fear, I took Hannah back to the scene of the crime.

I gave Hannah some bread and told her to get to it. Did it work?

Surprisingly, yes! This time she just stayed on the bridge and she had a great time. Phobia cured! I guess you do learn a thing or two from watching decades of bad sitcoms!